Murder scene described as ‘blood bath’ as trial begins

The first witness to testify at the trial of Deshawn James Chappell (above) was Kimberly Flynn (below), mother of his alleged victim, Stephanie Moulton, a mental health worker.Photos by Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe/Pool

A prosecutor Friday said Deshawn James Chappell, the man accused of killing a mental health worker at a group home in Revere in 2011, had “a purpose and a plan” in stabbing Stephanie Moulton and dumping her body in a church parking lot.

“He waited to get her alone,” Assistant District Attorney Edmond Zabin said at the first day of Chappell’s first-degree murder trial in Suffolk Superior Court. Chappell, he said, was a man “with malice in his heart and a knife in his hand” and a man who “went to great lengths to cover up this crime.”